1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capturing apparatus, an image capturing method, an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a program. Particularly, the present invention relates to an image capturing apparatus, an image capturing method, an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a program capable of hiding desired character information and restoring the hidden character information.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a user releases an image captured by a digital still camera or the like on the Internet and allows someone to browse the image, the user may want to hide character information that can include personal information in the image so that the character information is not read by anyone.
In that case, the user typically performs image processing, e.g., with a mosaic pattern or painting, on the character information by using an image editing software installed in a personal computer.
For example, in an image processing apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-7100), an original image is combined with a character-string image and the composite image generated accordingly is compressed and stored. At the same time, the part in the original image that is to be embedded with the character-string image is compressed and recorded as an image for restoring the original image, and the character-string image is replaced by the image for restoring the original image at restoration of the composite image.